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ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



DELIV^^wED AT THE 



HALL OF THE IVic^ lANICS INSTITUTE, 

^aint John, ^. 3. 

JUNE 1. 1865. 

AT TEE INVITATION OF THE CITIZENS. 

BY 

CHARLES M. ELLIS, ESQ.. 

of Boston, glass. 



SAINT JOHN, N. B. : 

J. & A. McMillan, 78 piunce wm. street, 

1865. 



BBEZISSSBHBHBaHHBBHHii^HHHIBBHBHBKKHBIHilHHHKS^SS^ 



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THE 



Wt^w^X %Hxt%% 




ON 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ' 



DELIVERED AT THE 



HALL OF THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, 



%mi John, f . ^y^^""' '^^ 



JUNE 1. 1865. 



Pi 



^f WASVilH^S"^ 



AT THE INVITATION OF THE CITIZENS. 

BY 

CHARLES M. ELLIS, ESQ.. 

of gostoit, pass. 



SAINT JOHN. N. B. : 

J. & A. McMillan, 78 prince wm. street, 

1865. 



L^s 






MAYOR'S OFFICE, 

St. John^ N. B.y 2nd Jutie, 1865. 
Gentlemen, — 

Having been present last evening, by your kind invitation, 
" to attend the memorial exercises at the Hall of the Mechanics' 
Institute," in common with the citizens present I was much pleased 
to note the fine and fraternal feeling that pervaded the whole 

assembly. 

The oration of the occasion in memoriam of the death of the late 
President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, delivered by the 
Hon. Mr. Ellis, of Massachusetts, was in such good taste, and taking 
so large and comprehensive a view of the whole subject, that in my 
mind the publication and circulation of the same, would enable 
many in this City and Province to obtain a better knowledge of the 
late disturbance in the United States, than they have at present. 

If this could be accomplished without inconvenience, I hope it 
may be done, as I am well convinced it would give great satisfac- 
tion. And I would respectfully suggest that the proceedings in 
detail might be set out, which reflect such good taste on the part of 
the Committee of the United States' subjects residing in this city. 

I am respectfully, your friend, 

I. WOODWARD, 
Mayor. 

To E. D. Jewett, 0. Small, A. Cushing, Esqrs.. Committee. 



Saint John, June 2nd, 1865. 
Hon. C. M. Ellis. 

Dear Sir, — We enclose a note just received from his Worship, 
Mayor Woodward, expressing the desire that your address delivered 
last evening at the Hall of the Mechanics' Institute, should be pub- 
lished for general circulation. 



IT. 



Should you feel disposed to leave us your manuscript for that 
purpose we shall feel great pleasure in complying with the desire of 
his Worship. 

Respectfully yours, 

OTIS SMALL, 
E. D. JEWETT, 
A. GUSHING. 



St John, June 2nd, 1865. 
Oentlemen — 

I have just had the pleasure of receiving your kind note enclosing 
the letter sent to you by his Worship, the Mayor of this City. 

As it is his wish and your pleasure, I cheerfully give you the 

Address for publication, though so little time was left me since 

Saturday last when first I knew that I was to have the honor of 

taking part in your meeting, I know it needs to be very charitably 

judged. 

I am faithfully, your friend, 

C. M. ELLIS. 

Messrs. Otis Small, E. D. Jbwhtt, A. CosHiNa. 



[The Order of Exercises adopted by Committee of Management, 
and carried out, at the Public Meeting held in the Hall of the 
Mechanics' Institute, will be found on the following page.] 




cttt0ttattt. 



JtlECH^JTMCS' IjrSTITVTE, JVJTE 1, 1865. 

ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



VOLUNTARY on the Organ, - by Professor ALLAW. 

PRAYER, " Rev. OLIVER BROWN. 

ANTHEM, 'ncarJalher.IiearourPrayer.' " THE CHOIR, 

ADDRESS, '' Hon. C. IVI. ELLIS. 



HYMN, (in which all are requested to join.) 



! Great King of nations hear our pray'r 
While at Thy feet we fall, 
And humbly with united cry 
To Thee for mercy call. 

2 When dangers like a stormy sea, 
Beset our country round, 
To Thee we look'd, to Thee we cried, 
And help in Thee we found. 



3 With one consent we meekly bow 

Beneath Thy chastening hand, 
And pouring forth confession meet.. 
Mourn with our mourning land. 

4 With pitying eye behold our need, 

As thus we lift our prayer, 
Correct us with thy judgments, Lord, 
Then let thy mercy spare. 



«■■•» 



SHORT ADDRESSES, 

PRAYER, 

BENEDICTION.- - - 



by 



n 



Citizens of St. John. 

Rev. JOHN BREWSTERo 

Rev. W. V. GARNER. 



GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. 



God save our gracious Queen, 
Long live our noble Queen, 
God save the Queen. 

Send her victorious, 
Happy and glorious, 
Long to reign over us. 

God save the Queen. 

I Through every changing scene, 
O Lord preserve the Queen, 

Long may she reign. 
Her heart inspire and move. 
With wisdom from above. 
And in a nation's love. 

Her throne maintain. 



May just and righteous laws 
Uphold the public cause. 

And bless us all. 
Home of the brave and free, 
The land of liberty; 
We pray that still on thee 

Heaven's smile may falK 

And not this land alone, 
But be Thy mercy known 

From shore to shore. 
Lord make the nations see 
That men should brothers be. 
And form one family. 

The wide world o'er. 



ADDRESS 

BY 

CHARLES M. ELLIS, ESQ. 

Thb dire war which for four years slavery has waged 
against the Union is ended. This final effort to complete 
the revolution which had been so long in progress, and 
for a generation past so rapidly, so nearly effected, has 
failed. The last remnant of the Rebel army beyond the 
Mississippi has surrendered. That government which, so 
recently proudly claimed a place amongst the nations, 
has vanished, and will never more be seen again. The 
chiefs in their cells, indicted as Traitors, as felons await 
the sure course of justice, which we of British blood deny 
and delay no man. A part of the Federal armies, — some 
hundreds of thousands of men, — have just been reviewed 
at the Capitol and are now being disbanded. On every 
line of conveyance, to the remotest parts of the country, 
you see the war worn men lying with their heads upon 
their knapsacks going home to their old labors ; and often 
some of [their comrades, freed at last from Libby or the 
stockade, wan and wasted, carried in strong arms, or on 
stretchers, tenderly borne homeward, to be nursed back 
to life again by loving hands, or to die, — proofs of the 
depth of that barbarism which hurried to treason and civil 
war, and resorted to fire, starvation, poison, pestilence, 
and assassination, — though all in vain, for their wrath only 



8 

served God's purposes. All over the North, men are fall- 
ing into the quiet, well-worn, pleasant paths of peace, 
which is beginning to shed her blessings on the regener- 
ated South. 

The guide, the leader of his people, Abraham Lincoln, 
the Saviour of his country, has been foully murdered, 
brutally slain by the side of his wife, by one of a gang of 
conspirators who thought to effect for Slavery and Free- 
dere, hy anarchy, what they had failed to do by civil revo- 
lution and intestine war; but he is with the just, and with 
vision free from mortal obstructions sees the good of his 
life, the good of his death, and lives in the throbbing 
hearts of his countrymen, whilst his country goes steadily 

on. 

It has pleased you to join with us in the observance of 
this day set apart by the executive of the United States on 
account of the loss of their good President, as you united 
with them also in the last rites, on the sad day of his fune- 
ral ; moved by honor and love for the true man, respect 
and sympathy for his cause, good will to our country, rev- 
erence for the interests of humanity. 

If it were possible to make any fit response to the feel- 
ings you thus express, to tell with what emotions the 
people of the United States meet you in such acts it would 
be enough. 

The sentiments expressed by your Queen; by the unan- 
imous voice of both houses of the Imperial Parliament; 
by the press ; by people of all ranks and classes, across the 
water; and especially throughout these Provinces, by you, 
our next neighbors and friends; manly, just, generous, fra- 
ternal were such as became the race. They came from 
true hearts, and went to the hearts of our people who 



boast the same lineage with yourselves. Accept my thanks 
for the honor you conferred in asking me at this hour, to 
speak of him, for his countrymen, to you. Yet it is some- 
what difficult, now, when his life and character have been 
so fully, constantly, ably, exhaustively discussed to offer 
any now thoughts, and to present the relation of his life 
to the history of America and of man, to citizens of an- 
other government. 

With the events of the life of Abraham Lincoln you are, 
doubtless, sufficiently familiar; thongh, probably, five years 
ago most of you knew little of him, and many of you 
nothing whatever. But the events of generations have 
been crowded into five years and his character is already 
historic. 

You know all ; his birth in Kentucky, a slave State, in 
1809, of poor parents; how they migrated with him a lad 
of eight, their all on a raft, to Indiana; how he helped to 
build there the log cabin in which they lived ; his buck- 
skin clothes and coonskin cap ; the little schooling 
whereby he got the elements of what he called his "de- 
fective education;" the Dilworth Spelling-book; a little 
writing; for the higher branches, a little arithmetic; his 
books, the Bible which his mother taught him to read, 
Pilgrim's Progress, ^sop's Fables, the Life of Washing- 
ton ; the flat-boat voyage of the youth to Kew Orleans ; 
then when he came to manhood the new migration to Bli- 
nois ; his building a new log house there ; splitting rails 
and building rail fence ; working out on a farm ; tending 
store ; keeping store; studying and practising surveying; 
a while postmaster ; leading a company as captain to the 
Black Hawk war; then studying law and beginning its 
successful practice w^hen nearly thirty; serving three years 



10 

in the legislature of his State ; then stumping his State 
then in Congress, condemning the Mexican war but sus- 
taining his country, not meddling with Slavery where the 
Constitution protected it, but striving to abolish it in the 
District of Columbia by prospective emancipation; his 
remarkable canvas against Douglass in which Abraham 
Lincoln prophetically said ^Hhis country could not he dividedy 
or be half slave, half free ; but would be all slave or all free,'* 
You know all down to his nomination as President in I860- 

A poor, plain, simple, honest, laborious, American life, 
with learning drained chiefly from nature, made a man, 
healthy, strong, self-reliant, calm, true, honest, brave, dili- 
gent, — developed all the manlier qualities. 

He learned to look into and to do things for himself — 
whether to build a cabin, split rails, build a flat-boat, keep 
store, survey, try causes, stump, legislate, or "run any 
machine " whatever ; and in a way which cultivated his 
native carefulness and modesty, got a consciousness of his 
own resources. 

Simple, truthful and frank; honest of purpose; of per- 
fect mental integrity; quiet always : slow to move, but of 
inflexible firmness ; never irritated nor passionate ; always 
self-possessed; always in good humor; laborious; always 
fair; devoutly religious; under this wholesome Ameri- 
can education, Abraham Lincoln grew up a sound man. 

Yet, when presented for the Presidency, though favor- 
ably, he was not widely nor was he thoroughly known. 
Men had been accustomed to look in other quarters for 
statesmen. The people had not learned to trust themsel- 
ves or their own men. It was an hour of peril. Wise 
men amongst us had fearful forebodings. You, no doubt 
thought that the choice of such a man at such a time, in- 



11 

dicated a sad state of affairs in our Republican Democracy. 
It seemed, indeed, that the odds were all against the 
country. The South, desperate, united, always victorious, 
with a strong body of allies,— accessories— throughout the 
North ; the North divided ; the South and their supporters 
thoroughly organized, sustained by many presses, suppor- 
ted by mercantile interests and commercial relations ; with 
powerful associates abroad as well as at home; having 
labored to this one end for many years,— through genera- 
tions ; supported by a public opinion it had moulded for 
its service ;— opposed only by a new unorganized body, 
whose principles were not popular, however true; indirectly 
aided by the intermediate conservative body of neutrals ; 
the South chose to bring to a bloody issue the sectional 
contest with the North, having on its side the power of 
the government ; its legislation ; the judiciary ; the execu- 
tive ; the press ; patronage ; the power of parties ; old 
traditions and ideas; domestic aml^reign prejudices; 



possession which gave show ot-^^erspeetive rigHt, — sure, 
sure, at last of completing the Eewlution which they had 
been so long plotting and in peace steadily and swiftly 
consummating, by an easy victory. They seemed to have 

all the odds. 

So seemed, save to those who had faith in the people 
and the truth— faith in man and trust in God. 

So it seemed in March, 1861, at his inauguration, to 
many even of our loyal Northern men, and of course to 
those of questionable patriotism : so it must have seemed to 
many, if not to most of you. So it did to more distant 
countries who knew yet less of us. For the man was but 
little known, and the people were no better known, knew 
not themselves. Americans, alone, who felt the beating 



12 

of their country's heart, who knew what was moving be- 
neath parties, creeds, philosophies, ethical and political 
systems, who saw that the people would be true, though 
the press and parties, pulpits and professors, faltered ; 
Americans who trusted in the power of God, such alone 
were fearless and welcomed the days that were coming. 
But Americans did not universally, nor even generally, 
understand America. !N'o wonder if other people mistook 
her. 

Looking back, now, we see what was the American 
people. The man they had chosen to lead, or as he thought 
to serve them, now seems to have been so exactlv fitted 
for his work that he is often spoken of as providential. 

Tou have, of course, watched the events, the military 
especially, of these four glorious years ; and must be fa- 
miliar with them and with the general policy and civil 
administration of the Government. 

You will remember that Abraham Lincoln was elected 
for no purpose but to stay anj^ further progress of Slavery 
and to secure the rights of all the States and territories. 
/That was the highest average faith of any organization 
joUA£/C/ that could be formed against the Slave Trade . You will 
remember that the traitors conspired to sunder the Demo- 
cratic party and ensure his election, and threaten or effect 
secession, and rule or ruin the country. You know that 
the legislature had always given what Slavery asked, 
Missouri Compromise, Compromises of 1850, Fugitive 
Slave Bill, — all ; so had the Judiciary — just falsified his- 
tory and usurped power to make the Dred Scott decision, 
justly making you and us, whose common ancestors held 
to the law of the Somerset case, blush for shame at one 
backsliding : so had the Executive, Louisiana, Florida, 



13 

Texas ; and within a few weeks proposed an " explanatory 
amendment" to our Constitution to guarantee the ex- 
treme demands of Slavery. 

VjYou know the state in which our country was ; with 
few troops, in garrison, at distant points ; at the JN'orth 
little or no military organization ; no military education or 
experience ; the South having heen long preparing ; drill- 
ing ; getting ammunition ; having seized nearly all the 
forts and arsenals south of Mason and Dixon's line ; the 
country with only twenty-six war vessels, and those scat- 
tered ; and, politically, having always conceded to slavery, 
now striving at no more than to resist its farther encroach- 
ments, threatened with war and shrinking from it ; and, 
morally, too, having for its faith compromise. 

Physically, the power did not then seem so clearly with 
the North as it now appears to have been. It had indeed 
20,000,000, but the South had 12,000,000, and of these 
4,000,000 to work whilst others fought. The North had, 
indeed, manifold the wealth of the South ; crops and man- 
ufactures that outweighed all theirs, but cotton and sugar, 
rice and tobacco, seemed to have more obvious commer- 
cial influence than hay and grain and shoes, and cotton 
was called King. The South had the constitution as in- 
terpreted and expressed, and by a line of decisions and 
course of legislature from 1793 till 1857, turned ivrong- 
side-out ; the North had the constitution as it was original- 
ly. But even that made concessions to slavery, and the 
concession of aught was the concession of all. 

The country stood in shameful contrast with the Amer- 
ica of 1776 and 1787. The thirteen little colonies, nestling 
along the Atlantic seaboard, treasuring up sacredly the 

results of the life of our Anglo-Saxon race for a thousand 

i 



14 

years, eliminating from them the maxims of natural law ; 
and thereon undertaking self-government, — though poor, 
and feeble and few, yet by force of their moral and politi- 
cal faith and truth gave an impulse to the civilized world, 
BO that France was revolutionized, England liberalized, 
the people of Europe freer,* whilst the United States of 1850 
to 1860, though stretching from ocean to ocean, 30,000,000 
strong, rich, powerful, intelligent, was the reproach of 
civilization. 

So strong indeed was the South in its own opinion, so 
strong to appearances, so changed from what it was once, 
that, unblushing, unconscious of wrong, it ventured to put 
under a constitution like our own, as its corner stone. 
Slavery ; that is making it just what ours was by interpre- 
tation and exposition, and expected to force it on the coun- 
try. So strong were they actually that they obliged the 
North to treat them, though traitors, and by law and jus- 
tice worthy the traitor's doom, as belligerents. 

You know well, too, the foreign embarrassments of our 
country. The South had many emissaries abroad, suborn- 
ing the press, poisoning the public mind, appealing to 
foreign interest and prejudices. 

Eecal, now, the general course of events of his public 
life — from the time when, bidding farewell to his neigh- 
bours and friends, he asked them to ''"pray that he might 
" receive that Divine assistance without which he could not suc- 
" ceed, but with which success ivas certain." Remember that in 
his inaugural address he said, " I have no purpose, di- 
" rectly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of Slavery 
" in the States where it exists, 1 believe I have no lawful 
" right to do so, and 1 have no inclination to do soJ" Remem- 
ber what efforts were made, in every form, for compromise 



15 

and peace. Bear in mind, too, that though it was obvious 
war made of all traitors or patriots, it was equally obvious 
that, in this civil war, treason was everywhere, and that 
the traitors in open arms found their most efficient aid from 
their abettors, who, in the guise of patriots, gave them aid 
and comfort H^ith purse ; by trade ; in parties ; by muni- 
tions and intelligence ; crippling the loyal states ; obstruct- 
ing the Government; instigating riots; justifying seces- 
sion ; exulting in its successes ; toiling for it with tongue 
and pen, at home and abroad ; — traitors as much as them- 
selves. 
Bear in mind, too, that he was called to exercise a power 

untried, undefined, unknown. Those who understood the 
country knew that it was a nation. Those who had fully 
weighed its constitution knew that its framers had not, 
like fools, left the one great cause of their own woes 
through long3-ears of weakness in war, military irapotency. 
They knew it was a nation ; one nation : with the am- 
plest, with unlimited power for war. 

Multitudes, in our country, everywhere, thought that 
the nation had no power to coerce the States or the peo- 
ple ; that is, that there was no nation ; that he had no 
power to act. 

At first he seemed to hesitate, to question the extent of 
his power. Of the nation's he had never any doubt. At 
the outset he called for but seventy-five thousand men, 
acting under an old statute, marked cbaolctc in our books. 

But the tempest raged as had not been dreamed of. In 
July, 1861, he told Congress that to make the contest short 
and decisive as many as 400,000 men and 400,000,000 
dollars would be required. 

Meanwhile the movement of things on the surface began 



16 

to indicate tlie course and the force of the great currents 
below. Slaves became " contrabands." Fugitives were 
furnished with employment. We had a fugitive slave bill, 
but common sense overruled it when fugitives came to our 
camps. Humanity could not let them starve. Slaves in 
the Confederate service were confiscated ; taken away as 
property, kept as men. Our oflS.cers were forbid to return 
fugitive slaves. 

But it did not seem to be understood what ^nation was. 
Rather, it did not seem clear that self-government could, 
in so vast a civil rupture, preserve the element of nation- 
ality, or apply it, or that he had adequate power. But, 
soon it was seen that, under a constitution framed by the 
people, for the United States, every man was bound, he 
and all he had, to the support of the nation ; that the ele- 
ments of strength existed where it was thought there was 
weakness ; that he had given to him adequate, unrestricted 
military power, in the simple, unqualified, and so amplest 
possible terms " Commander-in-Chief." If strong in peace, 
the country was stronger still in war. 

Still he hesitated to exert his power. In August, 1861, 
General Fremont declared martial law and emancipation 
at the West, and was removed. The President was not 
ready to adopt the emancipation policy of Secretary Cam- 
eron. At the South, Hunter issued a proclamation for that 
end, and was likewise removed. 

Still the current of history was sweeping him and the peo- 
ple onward. The days were long and dark ; disasters came 
often. Dangers surrounded us. To the doubting, to the 
timid, ruin seemed inevitable. To the traitors, to their 
friends, success certain ; though, now, it is plain that our 
success in the first year would have only restored the civil 



17 

power, and left the government and people to go on again 
under that, till slavery should have completed the revolu- 
tion it had begun. 

War, alone, stopped that revolution. Only our defeats 
and disasters led the nation on till, by war, by the war 
power of the constitution, the people were united, strength- 
ened, and forced to extinguish slavery forever. Victory 
then would have been ruin. 

But as the people moved, the President moved. Calm 
careful, conscientious, controlled by no party, section or 
interest, he was forced by the very pressure made on him 
by every shade of opinion, as well as by his own habit, to 
decide his own course of duty and run the machine for 
himself But thus his course was the resultant of the 
forces of twenty million men : that is the course of history. 
His movements were the aggregate force of this mighty 
people. A leader, a man of ITapoleonic type, of ambition, 
of will, theory, might have ruined, surely would have 
embarrassed the country. 

Gradually the current began to sweep things along, 
at first slowly. In 1862, he urged a plan for gradual, 
compensated emancipation of the several border States. 
He looked for what was practicable as well as what was 
right. He must build his house and fence of such logs 
and rails as he had or could split. He issued a procla- 
mation in September, 1862, announcing the great step to 
be taken the coming new year. This too was a dark year. 
The military campaign was not successful. Still the coun- 
try seemed to be gathering strength. Slavery was abolished 
in the district of Columbia ; forbidden forever in the Ter- 
ritories: negroes began to be enlisted. The people began 

to grow confident, to put forth their power, not to call 
2 



'/ 



18 

for levdes of men by hundreds of thousands and money 
by millions, but. as of yore, to pledge their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honor, to lay all, all, on the 
altar of country. 

Then came the immortal proclamation of Freedom of 
January 1, 1863. 
"T Then it began to lighten up^ the ship was off a 
dangerous shore ; but she had sea room ; the Captain 
was at the helm; she was well manned; though leak- 
ing yet the pumps kept her free; her sails were set; 
the ocean cm rents were sweeping her to safety; the 
breezes of heaven wafted her on her course. In July,. 
1863, came the victories at Vicksburg. The Mississippi 
was opened, the rebellion severed in two. That year be- 
gan the general enlistment of colored men as soldiers; 
Virginia, Missouri, the Cherokees abolished slavery. In 
November, at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln declared 
" this Nation^ under God, shall have a neio birth of Freedom.. 
" Government of the ^people, by the ][)eo]ple ajid for the people 
^^ shall not perish from the earth." He had taken observa- 
tions ; got his reckoning ; knew the strength of his vessel ; 
saw whither the course of history set ; had confidence 
in the people, and being a faithful servant of them, confi- 
dence in himself; and absolute trust in God. He began 
that year by declaring every slave within the rebel 
States tree forever. From that time success was con- 
stant, victory sure. In December, 1863, offering amnesty 
to the rebels and announcins: a scheme for the restoration 
of civil power, for he never had a dream of ambition, he 
said that *' the policy of emancipation and of employing black 
soldiers gave to the future a new aspect about lohich hope, and 
fear, and doubt, contended in uncertain conflict,'' and the next 



19 

spring lie wrote to friends in Kentucky that then '■^ at the 
'■^ end of ihrcc: years' slrur;gling the Nation's condition is not 
*' what either "party or any men devised^ or exiKcted. God^ — \ 
" alone can claim it. Whither it is pending seems flain. If ^ 
" God now vjills the removal of a great ivrong, and ivills, also, 
" that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay 
^'fairly for our complicity in that lorong, impartial history will 
''^ find therein neio causes to attest and. revere the justice and 
^^ goodness of God.'' Still there were vast obstructions; 
opposition, disaster enough to consolidate and strengthen 
the people in their work. The South had allies in the 
North, criminally agitating, in print and speech, against 
the Country, fomenting bloody riots in New York, Boston^ 
and other places; allies abroad, co-conspirators urging 
on parliament to recognize the Southern Confederacy in- * 
dependent. 

You know the course of military and naval victories of 
the next year. You know the course of progress in civil 
affairs — the admission of the right of colored men as wit- 
nesses; their right to education; — Arkansas, Louisiana,. 
Maryland free, self-made free ; the fugitive slave bill re- 
pealed ; a new Supreme Court ; the citizenship of colored 
men and freedmen recognized and confirmed. 

You know the great political event of last year, 
an event in the world's history as well as in ours, how 
an opposition in the interests of treason was attempted 
to be organized against the nation, to reassert the of- 
old omnipotent principle of compromise ; to guarantee the 
rights of the States and territories intact, and by old asso- 
ciations and prejudices and interests, with the help of mili- 
tary glory, to restore things as they were before the war 
began. But the ideas, the interests, the errors of the past. 



20 

generation had vanished. The people looked to the long, 
the distant past, the far-opening future. Abraham Lincoln 
was unanimously nominated upon the principles of nation- 
ality ; the utter extirpation of slavery ; and the constitu- 
tional prohibition of it forever. A common election, a 
political contest ; a desperate effort of secession, — it proved 
to be another pulsation of the heart of humanity, a new 
uprising of the people in their power, resting on their 
faith in God. Chosen almost unanimously he embodied 
the mind, the heart, the faith of America. 

You know the rest, the judgment, the execution. You 
know the vast sweep of the armies taking many States as 
in a net ; how the constitutional amendment forever forbid- 
. ding slavery was passed in Congress and ratified by so 
many states ; how then the final victories of war came, 
and he walked up the streets of Richmond, leading hisboy 
by the hand, amidst the benedictions of the race he had 
freed. 

You know all the rest ; how treason showed its hellish- 
ness and tried its last resort in murder; how without 
disease or pain, with a smile in his face, he passed from 
mortal life ; you know the wretched, lingering, agonizing 
death of the beastly assassin ; the bursting of the hollow 
shell of secession, — the mean, contemptible flight, disguise 
V^ and capture of the leaders of the traitors. It seems as if 
the devil, having had them for his allies and used them as 
Ms tools, left them in despair and in revenge, robbed of 
human sympathy, to be the laughing-stock aud scorn of 
mankind forever. 

In his election and by his death our country and man- 
kind were taught two important political lessons ; one that 
the executive elections, in which the wisest jurists had 



21 

supposed there was the greatest danger to a democracy, 
could be safely conducted in the worst of times, that the 
people can protect themselves : the other, that no other 
form of government is so secure from disturbance, from 
interruption of its executive functions by death, disease, 
or otherwise, as those in which the executive is elective ; 
nay, that the destruction of its executive head is impos- 
sible. 

Such was the private life, the public history of Abraham 
Lincoln ; the former inspired with the spirit of America, 
the latter the embodiment of the history of her most glo- 
rious days. 

American born ; bred by America ; at manhood he 
stood six feet four. In this spontaneous movement of 
society he moved with the people, though he towered above 
them, and as leader and legislator was only the servant of 
their thought and will^ as he saw their purpose to be the 
design of the Almighty. 

And are not you fit judges of his private and his public 
life? you who judge by those laws in which your history 
and ours, and the issues of freedom and humanity are 
united and confluent. 

Contemplate, now, his personal character. What wns the 
volume of his mind ? Who was ever freer from all dis- 
turbing elements: pride; ambition; prejudices; social, V 
political, professional influences \ (lo false philosophy ; no ^f 
pet theories, misled him. Ready to meet, to hear, to an- 
swer the wisest of any craft ; adequate to every emer- 
gency ; shrewd; wise as he was simple ; does he not in this 
respect fall into the class of such as Franklin, Socrates ? 

How large was his heart ? He not only was wise in 
thought, timely in speech, prudent in action, but he gave 



22 

expression to the feelings of the nation. He spoke from 
bis heart, and his fresh and honest emotions tonched the 
lieart of his people and of mankind, and set thern throb- 
bing What poor woman or soldier failed to secure his 
sympathy ? "What poet or orator ever moved men more ? 
What philanthropist was ever more zealous to serve his 
fellow men ? Whom did the world love better ? 

How absolute was his trust in the laws of God ? He 
liad faith in humanity, believed in the conscience of the 
people, began and ended life in childlike faith, which Na- 
/ poleon reached as the result of his so different life^that 
" there is no power without justice ; " and in his last in- 
aagural address, said " the Almighiij has Ills own purposes ; 
^^ the judgments of the Almighty are righteous altogether.'' 

For this combination of elements, attested by the unan- 
imous judgment of men to have bjen faithfully applied 
through his life, whom will you place above him ? 
/ ^ To judge of his public character, you must consider the 
^ 'relation of the public acts of his life, principles, and not to 
*^/ transient events; to learn his place in history you must 
^e what he did for institutions of historic importance. 
To judge him as a public man, you must know the rela- 
tion of his acts to the public mind, the intelligence of 
mankind; to the human heart, the conscience of the 
world ; to the law of God, the Divine purpose. 

You will regard little his origin or education, little 
whether his powers were native or acquired; how he start- 
ed; or what course he took. You look chie% to the 
results in these relations. You will consider whether in 
these results he looked to personal, local, transient inter- 
ests or had regard to universal, permanent, absolute laws 
alone. Did he regard political, sectional ends, or his 



23 

country and mankind? tbe issues and fortunes of his ad- 
ministration, of his generation, or of the people for all 
coming time ? 

The judgments of people of other countries, especially 
of the people of contiguous English colonies, if not likely 
to be more correct than that of Americans, must at least 
be affected by some essential elements which Americans 
too often leave out of the account/in the study of their 
own history and judging of their^public men. America 
can be understood only by study of England. We must 
know the life of the Anglo Saxon race, the course of 
liberty in England for many centuries. We were not 
only united politically till our revolution, but civil liberty, 
there and here, was developed from the same principles, 
by the same laws; jl^iere indeed from the nature of our 
country, the necessities of our condition, some new ele- 
ments earlier introduced ; but till then essentially one 
people in our laws, our liberties : and since then differing 
more in form than in substance ; in some points one in 
advance, in some the other. We have no hereditary 
rulers of the State, you no slaves. In our declaration we 
set forth certain absolute laws of nature, but we failed to 
live up to them and are paying the penalty. In many 
respects you have become freer than a people would be 
expected to be found under such a form of government. 
We take too narrow views and dwell too little on the unity 
of American and English, especially of American and 
Colonial historv and lives, and on the laws of all human 
progress. 

The best judge of American nationality is he who besc 
understands British liberty. He best knows the wrong 
of American slavery who knows best the basis of English 



24 

and of human freedom ; the foundation of all human 
law. 

Look, then, at the elements of our IsTationalitj. Distin- 
guish temporary, local deposits. Explore the lower strata. 
Contemplate longer periods of time, larger relations, fun- 
damental principles. Look beyond the issue of North and 
South ; l^ew England and Carolina ; Atlantic and Pacific ; 
America and England ; the Old World and the New- 
Find on what they all rest in common. 

Look beyond the issues of a canvas ; the principles of 
parties ; the compromises of this or many generations ; 
the decisions of courts ; even below the constitution of 
our country when jou judge — and so too below all of 
yours, to the laws which under-lie and control all. Sweep 
away what is transient and fix what is true ; to what they 
have in common and enduring, the laws on which all 
rest; to the deeper currents; the inner movements of 
states ; the laws which govern the origin, growth, of na- 
tions. Study the laws of the life of races of men through 
centuries and cycles, the law of humanit}^ 

And as by the study of the long course of history — our 
own as well as yours — and of it as part of all human his- 
tory, you form a true idea of what a nation is, v/hat the 
eternal laws of states are ; by that standard judge the 
events of these last four years, and his public life in rela- 
tion to them. 

"What then was American liberty ? The result of Eng- 
lish life and labor for so many centuries ; the right to life, 
liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the protection of equal 
laws ; justice and the right; a few simple moral and poli- 
tical axioms, eliminated, discovered, and applied in the 
course of ages, as the simple laws of other sciences also 
were discovered, recognized as absolute natural laws. 



25 

"WTiat was American nationality ? The state as a divine 
institution, formed as men's fashions might require, but to 
conform to, to enforce the law of liberty ; a country em- 
bodying in its institutions those laws, with power to en- 
force them ; self-government, but government by the law 
of Liberty. 

Such were they at the foundation. Practically there 
were local temporary concessions. But nothing was con- 
ceded to slavery but with the fair pledge that it should be 
extinguished, and with the express power reserved to the 
nation to enforce its extinction. ^tTothing was conceded 
to the States that was not subordinated to the powers of 
the one nation in which the people united. 
. But in the course of a mortal lifetime, at the accession 
of Abraham Lincoln, all had changed. 

Once justice, liberty, law, the Nation ; now, expediency, 
slavery, the States. You know what was the spirit and 
purpose of earlier days. But. now public men, the ros- 
trum, the pulpit, the professi^B(al chair, moralists, publi- 
cists, jurists, taught that th^ basis of all nationality was 
compromise, expediency. Ignoring the elements of na- 
tional law, the principles of liberty, they sought to revive / ,^ /» 
a long-exploded systems of morals and of men : unblush- /^^^ 
ingly, nay with fervor and zeal, with sheer madness that 
fancied itself patriotism, they proclaimed that that moral- 
ity which regarded absolute justice was puerile, foolish, 
impious ; that one nation, any nation was possible only 
by compromise ; that patriotism was the noblest practical 
limitation of universal philanthrohy ; and the only stand- 
ard of duty was utility. The ethics of nationality had been 
forgotten. Secession, treason were the legitimate result. 
The policy of the parties,' the measures of leading menf 



26 

the statutes, decrees of the Courts ; popular preaching ; 
the press ; teachings of schools and colleges ; the tests of 
social, political fellowship ; the laws of 1793 and of 1850 ; 
the policy of territorial extension from Louisiana to Texas, 
Kanzas, California ; the dogma of Calhoun ; the constitu- 
tional theory of Wehster ; the compromises of Clay ; 
Andover; Princeton; Cambridge; judges; lawyers; di- 
vines; writers and scholars — all, all social, political, com- 
mercial influences joined in assertions that the original 
law of liberty was a sham. They united to undermine the 
ancient nationality. 

Their rule was absolute ; and seemed to be sure. Arro- 
gant, intolerant they began the w^ork of proscription. The 
mails were rifled ; speech and the press muzzled ; liberty 
sacrificed ; the States stood first; the l^ation was their ser- 
vant and slavery's. Slavery ruled. Nationality was dying 
out. If peace had continued revolution would have been 
completed, ruin have come. 

A few moralists who taught justice ; a few divines who 
preached the law of God ; a few statesmen who held to the 
eternal obligation of divine law ; poets who sang for free- 
dom ; and popular writers and orators who nursed the 
nation's love for liberty, most of them without position or 
power, and powerless to act against all this machinery of 
'7 evil, Chaning, Garrison, Adams, Parker, Whittier, Stowe, 
/ Sumner, fchase, and such, kept alive the nation's heart. 
So Revolution was going on ; the country was drifting 
to ruin. Slavery had controlled, and nearly practically 
extinguished both liberty and nationality. 

But the tempest of war came and cleared the air again. 
When the shot was fired on Sumter and the flag hauled 
down, the scaffolding of the old parties, creeds, phi lose- 



27 

pliies, fell to the dust in a moment. It was obvious that 
it was treason ag'ainst patriotism ; secession against na- 
tionality ; compromise against principle ; slavery against 
humanity; expediency against justice. Parties dissolved. 
All this machinery stopped. The people hastened to undo 
the vile work of generations. The nation had been living 
on, and turned even the work of evil to its account. 

It was plain, too, that all this machinery was thrown 
out of gear, useless, powerless, in a moment. For it had 
all depended on the civil administration of the govern- 
ment in its several branches, and tbe modes of controlling 
the masses in the walks and ways of peace ; and now came 
war: the whole people must move as a military body ; 
with their commander, by the laws of war. So all that 
vanished. Slavery, the naked, deadly, loathsome monster, 
must be met face to face. There could be no parley, no 
compromise. It was life or death with them now. 

All at once the old nation was alive again ; morals were 
taught; religion was preached ; justice decreed; the Con- 
stitution was read as it had been in the beginning. The 
war power, as legitimate as necessary as the civil power, 
brought to an instant test parts of the political system that 
had never been thoroughly tried before. 

It was his fortune to move with his people, its leader 
and head, in this vast movement of American society 
sweeping on again in the tide of humanity, and inhis 
brief term sweeping away before it to oblivion the sha^ of 
seventy years. / 

You have noted his gradual developement, mind, heart 
and soul, and as the reason, sentiments, and conscience of 
the people stirred, he regulated the acts of the military and 
civil power ; vast armies ; the resources of a continent ; 



28 

the events of generations, ages, crowded into these four 
years; so that at the helm, he brought safe this mighty 
ship back to her ancient course again. 

So in four short years this man who came, unheralded, 
unknown, from the mass of the people, by his native great- 
ness, or because he was a man of the people, — a true 
man, untrammelled by social, scholastic, ecclesiastical 
n political or legal creeds, theories, or precedents, obliged 
j\j\A^j^cu ^Q confront the powers jind against the country, with 
the true principles and whole power of the govern- 
ment in open war ; obliged, as well as inclined to heed 
the heart and conscience of the people and of humanity, 
and that alone, did more by his acts to shape -the- course 
after the laws of human progress than any other man. 

And, without regarding the power he had vested in 
him by his high office and supreme command, it would 
be difficult to conceive how any man could have acquired 
over so vast an empire such complete moral control ; as 
it is impossible to name one whose motives in the exer- 
cise of supreme power was so completely unquestionable. 
Therefore the people of his country recognize him, as you 
all do ; as the representative American : the most Ameri- 
can of Americans ; the exponent of American life. 

Under him, what a revolution has been wrought ; Trom 
profound peace, with no preparation for war, an army of 
♦ two million men, war on the vastest scale ; from a little 
navy of twenty-six vessels, now about seven hundred ves- 
sels of war; manufactures developed enough to reimburse 
this outlay of thousands of millions ; the enfranchised la- 
bor of a race enough to repay it ; the energy, courage, 
principles of the people developed ; from an inferior the 
country became a first rate power ; it has advanced more 



29 

in these four years of trial than in fifty of prosperity, as a 
young man grows more in one year of adversity than in 
many of apparent success. 

But all this material progress is nothing besides the 
moral regeneration of the country ; nothing whatever. 

Under him, by the blessing of the good God, the people 
preserved the country entire ; the law of Liberty was re- 
stored to rule ; Kationality triumphed. 

It is now plain that Nationality is Humanity ; that in 
fighting our cause we have fought for j^ou, for self-govern- 
ment, and liberty regulated by law every where ; for civil- 
ization, and the progress of mankind. 

The work of his day, his work, was well done; all 
done: the work of war, felling and burning the forest. 
K the work of this day and the coming times, of clearing, 
culture, civilization, be done as well, it will be his glory 
to have redeemed America. If we fail, now or hereafter, 
and the roots of evil sprout and grow again, his will be 
the glory of having begun that work, ours the shame of 
its failure. Few, if any, names will stand out stronger 
or brighter in history than that of Abraham Lincoln. 

How fortunate in his death ! Having meekly, manfully, 
religiously, a faithful servant of his people and his God, 
done the greatest work of the ages ; still the same simple, 
honest, trusting Christian, he laid aside the robes of mor- 
tality to see his Country united, free,»'its union sanctified 
and cemented by his martyrdom ; its heart throbbing with 
love and gratitude inexpressible for him; and men of 
every clime, humanity joining in benedictions to him the 
good, the great, the true. 

Blissful translation ! Sufficient reward ; that a life of 
such glorious service should have been crowned with a 



30 

death not less serviceable to tlie holy cause to which his 
life was devoted, which enlisted for his country and for 
him the sympathies of the world. On earth his name will 
last, long after the monuments men w^ill erect shall have 
all crumbled to dust. As it is inscribed in the motto 
above you, "The memory of the just is blessed." 
The best monument will be the completion of the work 

ff that follows emancipation. Let the four million j5fe freed 

as men, be men. To teach a boy to work, set him to 

^ work. To make a man a good citizen, make him a 

citizen. If there be risks, as there a,re, take them. There 

can be no risk so great as that of leaviijg a root or fibre 

■■■■* of the evil in the ground. Let us leavei no distinction 
which may increase; none to recall the evil days. Let us 
root out slavery, and all trace of it, now and forever. 

Then will the world see the true glory of this war now 
closed, and of his life of devoted patriotism : that the law 
of all laws is the divine law ; know the meaning and the 
strength of self-government ; and that no State can stand 
secure that violates the law of human liberty, and the 
justice of God. 

These colonies are all but waves of a mighty race, 
sweeping to these and to other shores, to Plymouth rock; 
and to Canada; to California, India, and Australia. In 
the course of centuries, the lessening differences of time 
and form will all be forgotten. Little will be remem- 
' bered but such mighty convulsions in its course, if the 
unity and current of the life of the race itself be clear. 

Possibly, at some future day, your colony and ours, of 
common origin ; inheriting the same institutions ; with 
the same native love for liberty, and law, justice and the 
right; alike in climate, productions, wants, position ; with 



31 

one history in common; one common destiny; contigu- 
ous; with no natural barrier; so free in intercourse; so 
glad to show, so glad to receive, tokens of good will, may 
be even more closely united. 

But whether ever united, or on]y joinecL/in friendly 
alliance as now, till all shall have developed^law^f self- 
government and, in the progress of mankind, the people 
have become more and more a law unto themselves, you 
will ever feel a just pride that in this, their trial day, our 
people, your kinsmen, proved true to the spirit of their / 
fathers; defended their faith that ^religious truth is the 
basis of government/and will honor tlie name of Abraham 
Lincoln, the ^.saviour of his countr}', the martyr for ^ 
American Liberty. 




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